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With a breathtaking sweep of their pens (or keyboards), four Justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week swept away decades of decisional law concerning paternity by estoppel, ushering a new era of parentage litigation, in KEM v. PCS, No. 67 MAP 2011 (February 21, 2012). The facts were relatively simple and commonplace: a married woman had an affair resulting in the birth of a child, who was four years […]

Child support contempt defendants are not entitled to court-appointed representation even in cases where incarceration is threatened, says the U.S. Supreme Court, but the state courts must follow procedures that ensure the fundamental fairness of contempt proceedings. In Turner v. Rogers, Docket No. 10-10, June 20, 2011, the Court considered the rights of a South Carolina defendant who had been held in contempt of a child support order five times […]

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the international child custody treaty (the Hague Convention) requires the return of a child who was removed in violation of a non-relocation order.